Taken Alive eBook

should one appear. Authors often know little
about business, and should deal with a publisher who
will look after their interests as truly as his own.
Unbusinesslike habits and methods are certainly not
traits to be cultivated, for we often suffer grievously
from their existence; yet as far as possible the author
should be free from distracting cares. The novelist
does his best work when abstracted from the actual
world and living in its ideal counterpart which for
the time he is imagining. When his creative work
is completed, he should live very close to the real
world, or else he will be imagining a state of things
which neither God nor man had any hand in bringing
about.

TAKEN ALIVE AND OTHER STORIES

TAKEN ALIVE

CHAPTER I

SOMETHING BEFORE UNKNOWN

Clara Heyward was dressed in deep mourning, and it
was evident that the emblems of bereavement were not
worn merely in compliance with a social custom.
Her face was pallid from grief, and her dark beautiful
eyes were dim from much weeping. She sat in the
little parlor of a cottage located in a large Californian
city, and listened with apathetic expression as a
young man pleaded for the greatest and most sacred
gift that a woman can bestow. Ralph Brandt was
a fine type of young vigorous manhood; and we might
easily fancy that his strong, resolute face, now eloquent
with deep feeling, was not one upon which a girl could
look with indifference. Clara’s words,
however, revealed the apparent hopelessness of his
suit.

“It’s of no use, Ralph,” she said;
“I’m in no mood for such thoughts.”

“You don’t believe in me; you don’t
trust me,” he resumed sadly. “You
think that because I was once wild, and even worse,
that I’ll not be true to my promises and live
an honest life. Have I not been honest when I
knew that being so might cost me dear? Have I
not told you of my past life and future purposes when
I might have concealed almost everything?”

“It’s not that, Ralph. I do believe
you are sincere; and if the dreadful thing which has
broken me down with sorrow had not happened, all might
have been as you wish. I should have quite as
much confidence in a young man who, like you, has seen
evil and turned resolutely away from it, as in one
who didn’t know much about the world or himself
either. What’s more, father—­”

At the word “father” her listless manner
vanished, and she gave way to passionate sobs.
“His foul murder is always before me,”
she wailed. “Oh, we were so happy! he was
so kind, and made me his companion! I don’t
see how I can live without him. I can’t
think of love and marriage when I remember how he
died, and that the villain who killed him is at large
and unpunished. What right have I to forget this
great wrong and to try to be happy? No, no! the
knife that killed him pierced my heart; and it’s
bleeding all the time. I’m not fit to be
any man’s wife; and I will not bring my great
sorrow into any man’s home.”